


How Does One Smile After You Are Gone?

by Lily Catts (Borjarnon)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Grief/Mourning, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Partner, The Vault (Final Fantasy XIV) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 03:17:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19190842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Borjarnon/pseuds/Lily%20Catts
Summary: After the raid on The Vault, the Warrior of Light grieves.





	How Does One Smile After You Are Gone?

**Author's Note:**

> Lily Catts is my Warrior of Light.

A smile better suits a hero.

Those had been Haurchefant Greystone's last words to her, as he made his peace. "No, you are the hero," she had wanted to say, fighting back the tears and smiling as he had wished. She had conquered primals, armies, even despair itself, but her failure to protect herself, to require Haurchefant to give up his life for her--nothing could be more painful.

The rest of the night was a blur. House Fortemps Manor was full of ashen faces, and Count Edmont, in a rare display of vulnerability, shed tears for his son. Lily's mind was a vortex of dark thoughts. The darkness she had mastered stirred, its tendrils lashing out from the cage that was her soul.

Ser Zephirin, was it? She would end him first among the twelve. _Blood for blood. He will be avenged. Is that not your heart's desire?_

She found herself wandering the deserted streets. Even with his injuries, Ser Aymeric's first order was to mobilize the Temple Knights to secure Ishgard, putting a much-needed respite to the confusion and terror that had befallen the city since the aborted heretic attack. The sentries diligently kept watch, but paid her no heed, as by this time everyone knew the Warrior of Light.

It was her blessing and her curse. But for tonight, Lily Catts decided it to be in her favour. She leaned on the parapets, trying to see through the haze and the gloom of the city. The Dravanian horde was silent, leaving her to stew in her own grief.

"Should you be alone, at this time and place?" She heard a gruff and familiar voice pierce the silence. Estinien Wyrmblood had appeared beside her, in the respectful distance a fellow Dragoon knew--beyond lancepoint. His arms were crossed, and his head was turned to the sky as hers, but she could feel his attention directed at her.

"I... even I have my moments. After everything that had happened today, I wish to be alone," she replied.

Estinien did not leave. "I know that you were close. I may have never spoken to him, but Lord Greystone earned my respect today."

"I loved him," Lily said. She gripped the stone so hard that she felt it quiver. And the dam burst; her tears were cold on her skin. "How could I not? He was the first to welcome me when I first stepped into Coerthas. I thought little of it, but I realized how he saw me--not as a hero, not as the bloody Warrior of Light, but as a person."

"Go on," Estinien said, his visage impassive.

"I may be whom they call the Warrior of Light, but I don't believe I'll ever live up to it. Half the time I'm just a scared, bewildered girl, out of her depth. Every time I want to quit, the people in need pull me back, making me sorry for ever thinking of it. Would that I could give this duty away. But Lord Greystone... Haurchefant called me by my name, and he somehow sensed that the legend that people look up to was just some hyur who wants to adventure in peace. Not save Eorzea."

"Did you ever tell him how you felt?" Estinien asked.

"No, no. We had an understanding, but we could never act on it. I would never be able to settle down with him. Yet there was nothing more that I wanted. When he suggested I make Dragonhead my home, and called it the _Falling Snows_  in jest, I almost said _yes_ , had I not been with company. At that time, having had a stroke of extraordinary bad luck, I thought my days as a hero were at an end, and I wished I could simply live out the rest of my days in obscurity."

Lily sniffed. She reached for a handkerchief to wipe her tear-stricken face. "But you know how it is. For people like us."

"Yes. But you are more impressive than I thought, partner," Estinien said. "We are both Azure Dragoons, but I find myself wondering where you draw your that strength from. Mine is different, as you may know. Sometimes I catch myself envying you for the bonds you keep. Your compassion is what makes you worthy, what makes you the Warrior of Light that people believe you to be. If it had been anyone else who dueled me during my enslavement to the Eye of Nidhogg, I would have been slain. But you chose to purify me, so that I may redeem myself."

"I wanted to skewer your smug face so bad, but Ser Alberic would've been stricken with grief," Lily said, smiling for the first time in this godsforsaken day.

"Hmph." It seemed that Estinien had still not fully forgiven Ser Alberic for his deception, however well-meaning it was. "Nevertheless, I am still here, and that is what matters. You saved me. Before you are the Warrior of Light, before anything, you are Lily Catts. And you are my partner, my equal."

"Would that I could simply be myself," Lily said. "Would I have met him still, in different circumstances? My parents had perished in The Calamity, and I took up adventuring because they taught me to help people, first and foremost. 'The gil's just to pay for your food, lodging, and chocobos,' they used to say. They were adventurers through and through. I wonder what they would've thought?"

Estinien looked away. "I have not had family nor semblance of it. But your parents would have been proud."

Lily breathed the frigid air deeply. "Thank you, Estinien."

The proud Azure Dragoon scoffed. "It's my duty to talk sense to my partner. I would rather not have you feeble and miserable when the horde returns."

"Partner, huh..." Lily looked at the proud, unbroken city before her. Even now people were drawing up defenses and making hasty repairs to prepare for the next attack. This was a city that had stood for a thousand years, and she would not let it fall.

"Let me be myself for a bit longer."

Estinien gave a curt nod. "I will see you later." And with a mighty jump, he was away.

This was the city that Haurchefant swore to protect. When Lily realized that, somehow the snow felt warmer to the touch. "Haurchefant... I would spend a lifetime living up to the hero you believed me to be. But not tonight."

And so she let herself grieve, so that in the morning she would smile again.


End file.
